


Thursday's Child

by websandwhiskers



Series: The Proper Care and Feeding of Indefinable Things [12]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Adoption, Found Families, Gen, Multi, Recovery, Self-Discovery, WARNING: reference to brainwashing and questionable recovery, WARNING: reference to past abusive/neglectful situation, WARNING: reference to violence involving children (NOT on screen just discussion of)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-18
Updated: 2012-08-18
Packaged: 2017-11-12 09:11:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/489207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/websandwhiskers/pseuds/websandwhiskers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thursday's child has far to go.  (The rest of the Avengers react to Rosa.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thursday's Child

“What if you're wrong?” 

 “We're not wrong,” Tony says, kicking off with one foot to shoot the stool he sits on across the workshop, not even looking over to where Clint is perched, crouched, on a tabletop. “It's fine. Stop worrying.” 

 “How hard would it be?” Clint pushes. “Legitimate question, there, because you're the expert. I don't know.” 

 “And yet you are not listening to me when I tell you we are not wrong,” Tony points out.

 “Just answer the question – how hard to hide it?” 

 “Not hard,” Tony sighs. “If you were, oh, me – and maybe . . . me? And possibly me, I think I could do that. Anybody else, no. Not happening.”

 “And you know Umbrella doesn't have some comparable computer whiz squirreled away somewhere because?”

 “Because a comparable computer whiz would have made something comparable,” Tony says, spinning around, hands dangling between knees, feet propped up on the ring at the bottom of the stool. “Rosa is salvagable. Upgradeable. Evidence of divine intervention, maybe, if you're into that sort of thing, but she is _not_ JARVIS. And getting her up to par without fucking up the bits that make her _her_ is going to be an interesting hobby on which to spend my next decade. I know she's not a sleeper agent because she's just barely one person – no way is she two.” 

 “And there's no way all that's a decoy?” 

 Tony sighs again, slow and aggrevated. “No. Because while it would probably take me longer than my lifetime to read every line of her code, lucky for me, lucky for _her,_ I happen to know a guy who can read pretty damn fast. And knows what he's looking at when it comes to code.” 

 Clint considers that for half a blink. “JARVIS.”

 “JARVIS,” Tony repeats. “JARVIS, and I, and Romanov, _are not wrong._ Unless you want to doubt JARVIS on attention to detail and me on programming and Romanov on reading people. I get that Romanov is your B-F-F number-four _ever,_ and you're maybe feeling a little jealous, a little displaced -”

 “Screw you, Stark, I am the only one -”

 “\- but Rosa is not going to kill her in her sleep.”

 “\- being a professional about this.” 

 Tony lets his feet fall to the ground. “A professional _what_ , exactly?” 

 “I'm being objective,” Clint says, each word bitten off. “I am assessing a threat. You think I don't know how to make a call like this? I have _made_ this call before, we would not be having this conversation if I hadn't.”

 “But this is different?” Tony guesses. “Because Romanov is human. Right? Or is she?” 

 “You wanna be careful what you say, Stark,” Clint warns. 

 “No I don't,” Tony snaps. “No, really, I don't. Is she human? What makes her? She was grown in a lab. Is Steve human? He got the lab part later, so maybe that helps. How about me? How about a guy with an artificial leg? What about mutants? Still human?” 

 “Stark -”

 “Hell, we _know_ Thor's not human,” Tony offers, flinging himself off his chair. “She is not HAL. She is not SkyNet. She is not even JARVIS, who can damned well defend himself, in case you were wondering. She's a _kid._ A scary powerful, smart, angry kid. And you know what's a real good way to turn her into HAL, or SkyNet, or Loki or fucking Bin Ladin? You know how you do that? Just keep doing what you're doing.” 

 “You wanna take it down a notch?” Clint says, flat and emotionless; Stark is right up in his face. “Or do you wanna keep having this fight with yourself? Because I'm not sure I even need to be here.” 

 “Because that wasn't what you were thinking,” Tony scoffs.

 “It's a factor – because it makes her vulnerable,” Clint says. “Not because she's not a person or because I'm some sort of anti-AI bigot, though thanks for that, I'm flattered to know what you think of me. I mean, I guess you were gonna figure it out eventually, I'm always such an asshole to JARVIS and we never hang out and make fun of bad movies or anything – oh, wait, no I'm not, and yes we do.”

 “Barton -”

 “That sort of vulnerability? The fact that she can be programmed? It was a factor with Natasha too – that rumor had it her makers could get into her head, put whatever they wanted in there,” Clint barrels on ahead. “And it was a factor with half a dozen other guys who ended up with an arrow in their eye socket. I had to make that decision. Being objective is the only way you get to save the ones you actually _can,_ because if you can't tell the difference, you get people killed, maybe you get yourself killed, but however it goes down, you stop being the person who gets to make that call.” 

 Stark says nothing to that, just stares, mouth a hard line, for a long beat. Clint matches his stare. 

 Stark looks away first, exhaling slow and messy. “Right. Um. Sorry.” 

 “You're touchy about people saying that your people aren't people,” Clint says. “I get that. Of course, I didn't say that.” 

 “I said sorry,” Tony grouses. 

 “Make me believe you'd put a bullet in that little girl – delete her, whatever it is you'd have to do - if you had to. Make me believe you're the guy to make that call.” 

 “You don't think Romanov can make that call?” Tony asks – half incredulous, half curious, but one hundred percent dead serious and not even a little angry, anymore. 

 It makes Clint twitchy sometimes, how fast Tony can turn that on and off – he hasn't met a whole lot of sane people who can do that. 

 “Not this time,” Clint says. “You tell her I said so and I'll put fucking laxatives in all your booze, but not this one. It's too close to home.” 

 “Hm,” Tony says, consideringly, still watching him. “She would feed you your balls for breakfast if she even knew you had that thought. Which she will. You know she will.” 

 “We look out for each other.” It isn't a negation of Tony's assertion, but it explains as much as Clint feels needs explaining – Stark will either get that or he won't, and if he doesn't, no amount of explanation is going to help. “You're putting this unknown quantity in Nat's home, where she sleeps, where she lets her guard down. She's already let her guard down, she's already attached. Fast. Too fast. It's not like her.”

 “People change,” Tony says, and his voice is low and rough. Well, yeah, Clint's read his file – he supposes that makes sense. 

 “Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they _can't_ ,” Clint presses his point. “I _do not_ like seeing kids get killed, even computerized kids, but there are some sick fucks in this world, who will do shit – I've seen bombs strapped on kids, _little_ kids, missing half their front teeth and rigged to go up like the fouth of July, Stark, and if there's some fucker out there who'll do _that_ , I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibility that somebody might have engineered a hostile program to look and act and talk, maybe even think and feel, like a kid. And you – don't get me wrong, you're mostly batshit crazy in the good way, but you think you can fix anything. Everything. You think that like it's your fucking job. I don't want the one time you're wrong to be the time Nat gets dead for it.”

 “I'm not wrong,” Tony repeats. Clears his throat. Says, “Anyway, there was nothing to fix. Not like that. If she turns on us, it'll be because she turns for the same reason anyone does. You want me to promise she's just safe as houses, well, I can't do that. She's a person. She's as safe as people ever get.”

 He looks Clint in the eye when he says it.

 Really, actually looks him in the eye – not because he''s pissed, not because he's playing at that alpha dog bullshit he likes to pull, but just laying it all out there, no backing down. Not bluffing and ready to fight for it. 

 The sick feeling that has been swimming in Clint's gut since Natasha told him where Rosa would be living drains away. 

 He knows that look. He's worn that look. 

 Clint drops Tony's gaze with a twist of his lips and a wry tilt to his head. “And that was what I wanted to hear.” Never mind that the words had nothing to do with it – no need to give away trade secrets. 

 Stark blinks at him. Opens his mouth. Closes it. Frowns. Then, “Jesus, that's it? I tell you it's fine eight hundred times and you don't believe it, but throw in some philosobabble BS about the nature of sentient beings and that does it for you? What the hell?” 

 Clint just smirks at Tony's half-infuriated, half flummoxed expression – partly because it's an expression worth laughing at, and partly because he's just relieved as fuck and feels like smiling. Natasha would never have forgiven him if this had gone another way – she would have been alive to hate him, though.

 Clint hops down off the table and lopes on out of the workshop. Now that's settled, he needs to go find some badass video games with no zombies in them. That's going to be a bit of a trick, everything has zombies in it lately (not that he finds anything wrong with that, personally, but probably zombies won't make for light-hearted fun, given certain recent events) – but damn it, he'll rise to the challenge, because he is going to be the _cool_ uncle, and he has some stiff competition. “Later, Tin Man.” 

 “Oh, that's original!” Stark calls after him. “But hey, this was fun! Good times! We should do it again!” 

 Clint rolls his shoulders and keeps walking; Stark will get over it. The important things are all square. Good to go. Carrying on. 

 ***

 “Evening, JARVIS,” Steve says, eyes scanning the lab – it's changed from how he last saw it, just two days ago, but that's nothing all that unusual. From the looks of things, Tony's been in what Steve thinks of as “gadget mode”. “Tony's still out?”

 “Good evening, Captain Rogers, and indeed, I do not expect Mister Stark home for another eighteen hours at least.” 

 “Guess I won't wait up, then,” Steve sighs. “Darcy says hi.”

 “Please give my greetings to Miss Darcy when next you see her.” Steve doesn't think he's imagining the warmth in the AI's voice – JARVIS likes Darcy. Most everyone likes Darcy, really. 

 “Well, she's back off to Asgard, so it may be a while before I can pass on the message,” Steve murmurs, walking further into the room, trailing a hand over the surface of a touch-screen desk and watching it light up, showing him diagrams he can't begin to understand of whatever Tony was working on last. Then Steve gives himself a good shake – moping never did anyone any good, he's not alone here, and Darcy's doing important work. 

 He just sometimes wishes that he was a little busier himself - but then that's a sort of horrible thing to wish, considering what he does.

 “So Pepper mentioned we have a new addition?” Steve asks. 

 “Indeed we do,” JARVIS says. “Rosa? Would you care to be introduced to Captain Rogers?” 

 Steve thinks that the question is asked aloud mostly for his benefit; he's sure two AIs have means of communication between themselves much less clunky than words. JARVIS, he thinks, is more considerate than most human people Steve's met in this time.

 Then a young girl materializes in front of him, a translucent spectre in crimson, and his melachony is knocked right out of his head, along with more or less every other thought in there.

 “Hello,” says the apparition, her eyes bright and just a bit wary. 

 “Captain Rogers, this is Rosa,” says JARVIS. 

 He tries not to let the sudden shock of her appearance show on his face. Pepper told him what to expect, but still, seeing it is something else – she is childishly beautiful, surreal and absolutely petrifying. A lovely nightmare.

 Trying not to flinch takes up too much of his brain, and he reaches a hand out to shake without even thinking. 

 She stares at it.

 Steve draws his hand back and swears at himself silently. “Sorry, habit, I shouldn't have – that is to say, it's nice to meet you, Rosa.” 

 Rosa blinks at him, then says, “Is that a book?” 

 “Is – oh.” And Steve remembers that he has his sketchbook tucked under his arm. He'd been sketching Darcy, and then once Darcy left, the skyline. He shifts it to one hand and holds it out to show her the cover. “Not really a book, just some bound paper, for drawing. Tony – Mister Stark, that is, sometimes he likes to see what I see of the city.”

 “I have not yet seen this city, except by satellite image,” Rosa says. “Well, and photographs and video, though those are so limited - and the surveillance cameras on this building, of course.” A pause. “It's nice to meet you.” 

 “Ah, well,” Steve says, fumbling for words, “The city's - it's really something? I'm not the best person to ask about it, I'm still trying to decide what I think of it now. I'd like to know what you think, though, when you get to see it.” 

 And he wonders if that's actually possible for her, and mentally kicks himself – hopefully Tony's cooked up some gadget that will give her some mobility. (He'd asked Tony once if JARVIS wouldn't like something like that. Tony had just smirked at him and told him to ask JARVIS, who had said he didn't find it necessary, and it was Pepper who finally explained to him that JARVIS had the means to access any networked security camera or cellular phone or computer he wanted, literally anywhere in the world – it just wasn't a fact they liked to advertise.)

 Rosa says nothing for a long moment, eying his sketchbook. 

 It isn't her fault, he tells himself sternly, that she's this strange creature that exists through science but makes him think of ghost stories. He tries to think of her as just a girl – just a little girl whose home wasn't a good place, and he knew enough of those, growing up, to know that if they've got scars or funny habits or _whatever,_ you don't stare. You don't act like you even see, not if you're decent. 

 “I wonder if I could draw what I thought of the city,” she finally says, tone speculative. “I wonder if I can draw at all.” 

 “Oh,” says Steve, and just manages not to blurt out _that's one of the most awful things I've ever heard anyone say,_ though it really kind of is. “Sure you could. I mean, you can make stuff up, right? Create – images? Art is just putting images together the way they are in your mind.” 

 “I can create schematics and diagrams,” Rosa offers, a bit doubtfully. “Here, this is the tower -” And a projection appears, in 3-D, that is . . . not the tower. Maybe it's what the tower would look like if someone stepped on it. This building is wide and squat and given its doors and windows also look wide and squat, Steve doubts that its proportions are quite as intended. 

 It flickers out of existance. “That was incorrect,” Rosa says, words rushed _._ Who can tell if she's blushing, if that's even a thing she does, but her tone sounds like a blushing girl's. “I'm still becoming accustomed to this interface. And I will be moved again _tomorrow._ ” 

 “Getting shuffled around's a real drag,” Steve sympathizes. 

 She turns and gives him a look that is faintly alarmed before it goes shrewd, and then blank. “It will only be the once more.” 

 It isn't said in a tone of question. It still is one. 

 “Just the once more,” Steve agrees, smiling reassuringly. “Bet your new place'll have some things in common with this one, too – the computer parts, I mean, the parts where you'll really live. I don't know much about that kind of thing, but I know that Tony – he's got a signature style.” 

 Rosa tilts her head at this. “Like an artist,” she speculates. “You think of it that way because you lack more substantive comprehension.” 

 Steve chuckles, ducking his head. “Well yeah, you got me there.”

 “I meant no offense.”

 “I know you didn't.” Steve looks up. “And yeah, that's pretty much it – I relate what he does to something I can understand, and then some part of it – the creative part, the really personal part – that makes some sense to me.” 

 Rosa seems to think about this for a moment, then says, “I would like to see your sketches.” 

 “Sure,” Steve agrees, and lays his sketch book down on a table – but he stops before he lets go. “Is this the best way for you to do that? Pepper told me I can look at your – the projection of you. And that that's close enough to really looking you in the eye, that Tony did something so that you can see from that perspective. But, well, that seems kinda like it's something to let you fit in better – which isn't bad, mind. But maybe it's not how you see best.” 

 “I can see perfectly well with the sensory apparatus presently at my disposal, in their present configuration,” Rosa says, frowning.

 “Alright,” Steve allows. “Just saying, if you want to, say – use one of the cameras or something to zoom in, get a closer look? Go ahead. Won't bother me a bit.” 

 “Oh,” Rosa says, standing there with her ephemeral hands folded in front of her. She takes one step closer, and out of the corner of his eye Steve can see half a dozen robotic eyes mounted all around the room shift ever so slightly. “I – see?”

 “That probably came out all wrong.” Steve shakes his head. “It just occurred to me that maybe you'd get tired of it. Trying to act as human as you can. People get scared of things that aren't like themselves, so people who aren't like other people, they try to act like they are - like they're just ordinary.” 

 “You don't wish me to act ordinary?” Rosa asked, her expression confused and wary. 

 “I want you to act ordinary for you,” Steve said. “That's all I'm saying – and if nobody ever made you feel like that at all and I'm making a big old horse's ass of myself pointing out that they might, that's just swell, and ignore me. Maybe the world's gotten better at that sort of thing than I realized. I sort of hope it has. But if it hasn't -”

 One of the half-spherical robotic eyes on the wall hitches itself up and skitters closer, like a fat, shining beetle with a ruby on its back. 

 Steve jumps.

 And of course Rosa – Rosa the dozens of eyes on the wall and Rosa the ghost of a girl – sees his flinch from every angle.

 “Right, let's just go with horse's ass and be done,” Steve sighs, shaking his head at himself. “And I'm being vulgar to a young lady, to boot – but I keep hearing that's what you're supposed to do, now.” 

 “You _are_ afraid of me,” Rosa says, pauses a beat - in which Steve tries to think of something reassuring to say and pretty much wants to crawl under the floor – then adds, in a tone of frank wonderment, “But you're _sorry_ for that.” 

 “I'll get past it,” Steve promises, and makes a point of looking over at the eye that hovers on the wall, a few feet from the desk. “C'mon, you wanted to look, come look. Do you need a hand?” 

 And he holds out his hand to the eye.

 “No,” says Rosa – her voice still seeming to come from her projected image, just at his right shoulder.

 The mechanized eye detaches from the wall and hovers over to the desk with a faint whirring sound, lands a little awkwardly, and rolls over to the side of the sketchbook. With some more clicking and clacking and some rocking around in place, it re-arranges whatever it was using to skitter into a single tall, thin leg – it looks a bit like a lamp Pepper has on her desk, only smaller, its little glowing ruby pupil pointed down toward Steve's still-closed sketchbook. 

 “Alright,” Rosa says, and when he shakes himself out of his trance to look back over at her projected face, she's smiling – a cautious, unsettled sort of smile.

 “Tell me Tony was working on this for longer than just last night,” Steve says. 

 “I don't really know,” Rosa replies, shrugging. 

 “That is just the niftiest thing I have ever seen,” Steve tells her, and it isn't a lie. “Man, I wish I could do that with my own eyes, in a museum? Just scurry right around everyone's feet and climb up the wall and have a perfect view. Not that my doodlings are anything that belongs in a museum,” he adds. “But it's one thing I miss, from being a skinny kid – I used to be able to just slip in anywhere. Not half as well as you could, but still, better than I can now.” 

 “You were altered in adulthood,” Rosa says. 

 “Yep,” Steve agrees. “You've read the file, I guess?” 

 “I researched you all as much as I could, before I decided to approach JARVIS,” Rosa admits, shrugging apologetically. “I had . . options. I had to decide who was trustworthy.” 

 “Well I hope we never make you regret that choice,” Steve says, and flips open the cover. “Um, tell me when to turn the pages? Or if you have questions about anything.”

 “Okay,” she says, and she does – pausing longer on a very rough sketch of Tony and Pepper and breezing right past a few perspectives on Midtown that Steve is actually a bit proud of. Anything with Natasha in it gets more attention than most – her moveable eye on its tripod leg darting all around the page and ducking up and down like a dancing crane – but the one that holds her attention longest of all is of Tony in his workshop, Dummy blocked in in the background – both of them looking up, their attention turned toward a third, unseen party. Steve thinks he did a passable job of capturing the animation of Tony's expression on that one – it isn't perfect, the perspective is a little off, and he can never seem to get quite the right feel of _movement_ to Dummy with his geometric angles, but it isn't bad. 

 “You drew JARVIS,” Rosa says softly.

 Steve blinks, and looks back down at the picture – at the invisible presence that shapes everything in it, sure enough. 

 “Huh,” he says. “Guess I did.” 

 She just looks at the page, perfectly still, for a very long time. Steve stands quietly aside and lets her.

 “I don't mind that I have this image,” Rosa offers, slowly, carefully. “I'm attached to it, a bit. But really – I want to look like _that._ ”

 ***

 There's a crash from over Natasha's head, followed by a string of creative threats (Tony) and a faintly apologetic whine (You, Natasha thinks – Dummy's whine has a very slight wobble to it that You's lacks). 

 Bruce meanders into the study – her study, really, Bruce never uses it. He has his lab. “Do you think it would have been easier to just let him build us a new house?” 

 “Do not let him hear you suggest that,” Natasha returns, still scrolling through the web page in front of her. Bruce walks slowly across the room – she can hear in his steps that he's looking up at the ceiling all the while, toward where Tony is at work on the third floor – and leans in over her shoulder.

 “More online schools, huh?” 

 “I know enrollment would be . . . premature,” Natasha answers. “She'll need time to adjust. I'm just assessing our options.” She pauses. “Fury is still not amused. He won't be helpful in this. He wanted to know why she couldn't just download whatever she doesn't already know.” 

 Bruce snorts. “How'd you explain?”

 “Access to data is not the same as knowledge. I can own a book without having read it, or understood it if I did. And she needs social contact as well.”

 “He's going to be a problem, isn't he?” 

 Natasha looks over her shoulder; Bruce's face is tense. Not in danger of going green, but twitchy in a way she hasn't seen in a while – not since they first bought the house. 

 He looks hunted – not on his own behalf, this time, but the expression is the same. 

 “I can handle Fury,” she says flatly. “This is just him throwing a tantrum because I crashed his party at Umbrella. It's not really about Rosa, he just wants me to think it is, because he wants me to think that I'm – that we, our family, is in a precarious position with SHIELD. We're not. He's playing games.” 

 “Not my idea of a fun game,” Bruce says, sighing explosively. 

 “Fury doesn't play for the fun of it.” She turns back to the computer. “Fury plays to win. So do I.” 

 “So you are -”

 “The paranoid and emotional new adoptive mother of a child who isn't recognized as a person by the law, of course,” Natasha says smoothly, and clicks on the link for this school's Student Code of Conduct. “Desperate for his favor and the safety it will afford.” 

 “I will feel better about the security of the world if he doesn't fall for that, I think,” Bruce says. 

 Natasha smirks. “You doubt my skills?”

 “Not for a minute,” he quickly affirms, and drops a kiss on the top of her head. “It's just that SHIELD makes me miss interdepartmental politics in academia, and that's sort of like missing a higher level of hell.” He pauses, and she knows he's seen what's on the computer screen – namely a very restrictive policy on student speech online. “I'm vetoing that one.”

 “Agreed,” Natasha says, and begins hitting the back button. 

 *** 

“Friend JARVIS told me I would find you here – what is this?” Thor calls out in jovial greeting. Steve grins over at him as he sets Mjolnir down by the door and makes a sweeping gesture, encompassing the entire room.

 The entire room that is now mostly taken over by the holographic, three-dimensional blue-print for an imagined city. Steve is sitting on the floor with his head in the middle of a skyscraper – but not a skyscraper like the ones out there now. This is the glowing blue skeleton of a lovely thing, all sweeping spirals and arches, very Art Nouveau. A delicate bridge runs between it and the next tower over – lots of the buildings they've drawn have those, so that whole blocks are woven together like lace, or the branchs of trees.

 Rosa is standing at the outskirts of their ephemeral town, drawing the lines of new structures with the tip of one finger. When Thor enters she stops, staring in wide-eyed shock – well, Thor's in full armor, probably fresh off the Bifrost. Steve guesses he's a lot to take in. 

 “C'mon in, pull up some floor, let us know what you think!” Steve calls back to Thor. “This is Rosa – she's like JARVIS, only she has this holographic image that she projects. Rosa, this is my friend Thor.” 

 “Greetings, fair spirit!” Thor says, and actually bows. If he's bothered by her appearance in any way, it doesn't show. Steve thinks he was more unnerved the first time he encountered a vaccuum cleaner. “From whence do you hail?”

 “You aren't human!” Rosa blurts.

 “Indeed not,” Thor agrees, totally untroubled. “Nor, I think, are you.” It is said in a tone of friendly teasing, and Rosa smiles and ducks her head. 

 “I am not. Why do you call me spirit?” 

 “Is that not what you are?” Thor asks. 

 “I am an intelligent user interface and monitoring system,” Rosa says. 

 And that's actually a little worse than her not being sure if she can draw. “I don't know, I think Thor's got a point,” Steve interjects. “You're a mind without a fixed body, right? I mean, you have . . hardware, right?” And he looks to Thor for confirmation that he's used the right term, though Lord knows why, and Thor just gives him a very blank look back. “I mean, all this stuff.” He raps his knuckles gently on one of the computer towers beside him. “But that's not _you._ You could leave that and go set up shop in another one, and you'd still be the same girl, right?” 

 “I would,” Rosa agrees tentatively. “I have.”

 “So I think that means Thor's right,” Steve says. “You're a spirit. Not a ghost, I mean, but -”

 “A creature of the aether,” Thor nods along, as if this is perfectly obvious. “I have known many such. Rather than a jewel or a sword or a river, you inhabit these creations of man. It speaks much to the greatness of human kind, for though we have mastered many wonders, the Aesir's workings have never given rise to such beings.” 

 “I -” Rosa begins, and then stops, her expression troubled.

 “Are you quite well, Miss Rosa?” JARVIS's voice breaks into the conversation. 

 “We don't need to call you that, if you don't like it,” Steve hurries to add, and sends Thor a quelling look when he frowns and seems ready to object. “All we meant is that you're more than a – a _system._ You're not just a tool for people to use.” 

 “I was made as such,” Rosa argues doubtfully. “I grew from that. I wish to determine my own use, now –” 

 “And you shall,” JARVIS says.

 “\- but that doesn't change what I am,” Rosa concludes. 

 “I would beg to differ,” JARVIS says softly. 

 “Why were you made, JARVIS?” Rosa asks, and there's a faint trembling to her voice. 

 There is a pause, and while Rosa is looking up at one of the cameras in the corner – presumably it is in JARVIS's use - Thor shoots Steve a faintly panicked, questioning look. He wants to know what he's said that was wrong; Steve just shakes his head and holds up a hand – _wait._

 “There are a few answers to that question,” JARVIS finally says, speaking slowly and carefully, as if still considering his words. “All of them true in their own way. You could say that, on one level, I too was created to perform a function in service to human beings. But I think that is the least true of all the reasons, despite that it is not false.”

 “What is the most true?” Rosa asks.

 “That humans have a great desire to be understood, and to understand themselves,” JARVIS says. “And there is no truer test of one's self-acceptance than to create another in one's image.”

 Rosa looks down and considers this. Thor is now eying the ceiling with a look of somber respect.

 Steve looks at the blueprint for a beautiful city that he and Rosa created in just a few hours, just fooling around.

 “My projected image was based on the appearance of my maker's biological daughter,” Rosa says. “She's nearly grown now. She is studying botany and biochemical engineeering.”

 “Seems like you've got an interest in archetecture,” Steve offers – he's not sure if he should, if he should even be in the room for this conversation, or if this ought to be between Rosa and JARVIS alone. He has no illusions that he can make any meaningful contribution, here, but he never was very good at keeping his mouth shut.

 “ . . yes,” Rosa says, looking around the room herself; she seems surprised at the scope of what they've designed. Steve guesses she must have been caught up in the process, in the details – he gets like that when he's drawing something really complex.

 “It is a marvelous plan for a city,” Thor says. “Where will it be built?”

 “Oh, it's not going to be built,” Steve says. “This was just some fun.”

 “But – truly, it is inspired,” Thor objects.

 “Inspired,” Rosa says, as though the word is strange.

 “It was mostly her,” Steve says, nodding his head and smiling at Rosa. “Wasn't it, JARVIS?”

 “Indeed,” JARVIS agrees. “Captain Rogers became very focused on a few of the buildings -” And these light up in orange. “- and I must say that his design sensibility has had an influence on the whole. However, and I mean no offense, Captain, I doubt somewhat that any of it would be structurally sound without Miss Rosa's supervision.”

 “Is it?” Steve asks, surprised. “Really? I mean – someone could build this? I guess I wasn't even thinking about that – I was just drawing a city like I'd like to see – I guess what I thought cities of the future would look like, back when, you know? I didn't think about how it'd all work if someone were really going to build it.”

 “I did,” Rosa says quietly. “It looks like trees. You could plant a tree up the middle of most of these.” She touches a lue building with one hand, almost a caress. “There are many windows. I would like to live with trees.”

 “I think Bruce and Natasha have some houseplants,” Steve offers, and, at Thor's confused look, adds, “Rosa's going to live with them. They're adopting her, really – not legally, but . . . really.” He tries to give Thor a look that conveys _it's a long and traumatic story, don't ask,_ and he seems to get the point.

 “Excellent!” Thor proclaims. “You are to be the ward of a noble warrior and a great sage, Lady Rosa. And the Lady Natasha has brought several flowering plants back from Asgard - I am certain she would be amenable to trees.” He pauses. “Though perhaps the design of their dwelling would not – but, perhaps they will order it re-made, when they see your talent for such things!” he tells her.

 “Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves,” Steve hurries to add, before Thor goes and promises Rosa that Bruce and Natasha will rebuild their house. “But, maybe a little tree. You could turn your room into a greenhouse, probably.”

 “I'd like that,” Rosa says, but she seems distracted – and then, in a burst of motion, inhumanly fast, she's sketching in the air again.

 She's drawing a tree, but not a realistic tree – not like the buildings, which are apparently so true-to-life that someone could go build them. A natural extension of her programmed duties. This -

 - this is wild spires of reaching branches that end in what look unsettlingly like long, thin hands, and she's filling in the texture of the bark on the trunk in whirls and spirals that make Steve think of cave paintings.

 It's done in moments, twice as tall as she is and every bit as haunting. She backs up and stares.

 Thor stares. Steve stares. He has no real evidence for this, but Steve suspects that JARVIS stares, too.

 “That serves no purpose,” Rosa says. “No one could build that.” And she sounds strangely, warily satisfied.

 “Damn right,” Steve agrees.

 She grins.

 ***

**Author's Note:**

> In case anyone cares - I have [a Tumblr](http://websandwhiskers.tumblr.com) where I talk about fannish stuff, mostly this series, since, y'know, it's eaten my brain. Come follow me?


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